Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Text/ended Family

Welcome
to the May 2012 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Parenting With or
Without Extended Family

This
post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural
Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our
participants have shared how relatives help or hinder their parenting.
Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival
participants.***My sister texted me on Easter morning: “I still wish you
would move back here,” and I just sighed.
The Big Sigh. She knows as
well as I do that when you have joint custody, it’s basically like being in
geographic jail. “Thou shalt not
move,” decrees the deep disembodied voice of the family court judge from the
burning bush.

I never imagined raising my children far from my Tennessee
family. It just, well,
happened. Or, that is, it just
happened that I fell in love with someone whose need not to live in Tennessee
was greater than my need to stay there.
And it also seemed that, really, maybe being a two-mom family in
Tennessee--where as a childless lesbian couple, we were regularly asked “Can I
watch?” if we held hands in public--well, it just seemed that maybe California
would be a bit more friendly to our particular nuclear family.

And in that way, it’s been easy to be a few thousand miles
away from home. Our kids have two
moms, and no one so much as bats an eyelash. Hip-hipster-hurrah.
But that wife of mine, the one who needed to flee from Tennessee,
unfortunately, also ended up needing to flee from the Tennessean she had
married.

So now I’m a single mom. For four days each week my house resembles a Berenstein
Bears illustration we have, of three wild acrobat bears piled on top of one
poor squashed bear who is desperately trying to keep his bicycle balanced under
the load. And the choice to live
in a queer-friendly community seems like pure folly when you realize that if we
gave up that one little thing, we could live on the same farm as actual real
live grandparents. And a bonus
aunt (the aforementioned texting sister).
And ponies. That would be,
all on one piece of land, adults in a quantity actually outnumbering the children. Plus, did I mention the ponies?

“What in the heck was I ever thinking to come here?” I
wondered in my late-night exhaustion as, all alone and joyless, I set out the
Easter baskets full of over-packaged but organic bunny-shaped fruit gummies and
other equally mockable contents?
(Yes, that was me you saw at the grocery checkout with the organic
cheesy bunnies, organic bunny grahams, and organic, gluten-free bunny-shaped
ginger snaps.)

The Easter Bunny also left a basket of fair-trade chocolate
balls and organic lollipops for the afternoon egg hunt. (The Easter Bunny learned the hard way
that she can’t hide these things ahead of time, as the dog will eat them, with
unpleasant results.) Not too many
sweet things, just enough for some secular renewal-of-the-earth springtime
fun. But then, it’s easy for the
Easter Bunny to stingily parse out the treats, as, inevitably, there also
arrives the package from the bonus aunt, whom the children have nicknamed their
“candy mom.”

Easter is one of the times when it all comes into focus: how
great it would be to be closer to home, attending a sunrise service with the
liberal Episcopalian grandparents before we all hunted eggs in the giant yard
behind their house. How nice to
have an available auntie for egg-hiding and kid-distraction. And how insane to be riding a runaway
train of out-of-control candy consumption, which would probably not confine
itself to the holiday.

While I tend to think there’s a difference between homegrown
honeycomb and corn syrup candy, between grass-fed local beef and McDonalds,
between organic food from a nearby farm and shrink-wrapped veggies shipped from
South America, my scientifically-minded, candy-buying sister tells the kids:
“It’s all the same molecules when it breaks down.” Right before she buys them a fast food meal, which they
enjoy immensely.

This dynamic is tolerable, even strangely welcome as a
pressure-release from my tightly controlled food rules (you know: organic,
local, fair-labor, harvested by virgins under the full moon, and so on). Tolerable, since we only see her for a
few days each year. If we lived
there, we would actually have to have ongoing regular discussions about not
only food, but about fairly deep underlying philosophical differences. Like, for instance, her wish that my
kids could attend day camp at her church, about which she said reassuringly,
“Just because you don’t live a
God-sanctioned lifestyle doesn’t mean anyone would hold it against the
kids.” Um, okay, well, um, um,
um…I don’t even know how to start a conversation about that. (And because I
live very far away, I don’t have to!)

But I still miss her, and wish the kids knew her in a deeper
way than just as the bearer of ice cream and fast food.

I suppose it’s easy to romanticize the benefits of having
family around, and probably just as easy to take them for granted when you have
them. And the fact of the matter
is, I can’t move home, so it doesn’t matter which set of issues I would prefer
to have. What I can do, I do,
which in this case was simply to suppress my urge to pretend that the kids’
“candy mom” didn’t send a package of politically/environmentally-incorrect
Easter eggs. (I could have; it
arrived when they were at the other house, giving me a perfect opportunity to
deliver it straight into the trash bin.)
Instead I added those eggs in with what the Bunny brought, and hoped
that in some way, as they hunted among the bushes and flowers, the kids could
feel both the love with which I make such carefully conscious choices, and the shipped-from-Tennessee, non-organic love which
is, when it breaks down, all the same molecules of DNA.

***Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!
Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:(This list will be live and updated by afternoon May 8 with all the carnival links.)

My Family and My Kids — Jorje of Momma Jorje ponders whether she distrusts her family or if she is simply a control freak.

Parenting with a Hero — Rachel at Lautaret Bohemiet reminisces about the relationship she shared with her younger brother, and how he now shares that closeness in a relationship with her son.

Text/ended Family — Kenna of A Million Tiny Things wishes her family was around for the Easter egg hunt... until she remembers what it's actually like having her family around.

Two Kinds of Families — Adrienne at Mommying My Way writes about how her extended family is just as valuable to her mommying as her church family.

My 'high-needs' child and 'strangers' — With a 'high-needs' daughter, aNonyMous at Radical Ramblings has had to manage without the help of family or friends, adapting to her daughter's extreme shyness and allowing her to socialise on her own terms.

Our Summer Tribe — Justine at The Lone Home Ranger shares a love of her family's summer reunion, her secret to getting the wisdom of the "village" even as she lives 1,000 miles away.

Dear Children — In an open letter to her children, Laura at Pug in the Kitchen promises to support them as needed in her early days of parenting.

Yearning for Tribal Times — Ever had one of those days where everything seems to keep going wrong? Amy at Anktangle recounts one such day and how it inspired her to think about what life must've been like when we lived together in large family units.

I don't have a village — Jessica Claire at Crunchy-Chewy Mama wishes she had family nearby but appreciates their support and respect.

Trouble With MILs-- Ourselves? — Jaye Anne at Wide Awake Half Asleep explains how her arguments with her mother-in-law may have something to do with herself.

A Family Apart — Melissa at Vibrant Wanderings writes about the challenges, and the benefits, of building a family apart from relatives.

First Do No Harm — Zoie at TouchstoneZ asks: How do you write about making different parenting choices than your own family experience without criticizing your parents?

Military Family Separation — Amy Willa shares her feelings about being separated from extended family during her military family journey.

Respecting My Sister’s Parenting Decisions — Dionna at Code Name: Mama's sister is guest posting on the many roles she has as an aunt. The most important? She is the named guardian, and she takes that role seriously.

The nuclear family is insane! — Terri at Child of the Nature Isle is grateful for family support, wishes her Mum lived closer, and feels an intentional community would be the ideal way to raise her children.

13 comments:

I love the way you write. I can feel the tension between wanting to be in two places, and I recognize it in myself.

I know there is romanticizing involved, though. I always want to visit more, write more, Skype more, be closer … and then when I do, I get annoyed at the things like you mention — the dismissal of my own values and thoughts. If I lived nearby, would I even be myself anymore? Which tradeoff is better? If you were somehow freed from joint-custody jail, would you really choose to move back? (I wonder similar things sometimes.) Anyway, thank you for the thoughts you've sparked.

Such a great post :) And yes, I agree that we can romanticize it - that is exactly why we moved home when I was pregnant with Kieran. It hasn't made much of a difference, but wow - I am so happy that we've found our community of friends!I hope you find peace with where you're at for now :)

Why do humans always seem to want that which they cannot have? I live near almost all of my extended family and want so very badly to SKIP TOWN. I want to live on the road or even in a greener place. My husband, however, has a child here. And so we're in geographic jail, just in the reverse of your own. We're stuck WITH my family, but far away from his.

I can really relate with this. I would give anything to be near my sister. We share nearly all of the same ideals and parenting philosophies and I know she would love my kids as much as I do, but it just isn't feasible (because of my husband's job). After reading what you wrote, I just want to pick up and move to where she is! I feel so sad for you that you are trapped there, but maybe you are right that the grass is always greener. My hope is that you can create a family where you are, one that will feed your soul and nourish your spirit and love your children and make you feel at home - REALLY at home - where you are. xo

I'm always eager to see the extended family and then I'm totally relieved when they leave. It's the good mixed with the bad and I'm not really sure if I regret that my children don't have a closer relationship with their relatives OR if I'm thrilled that my children don't have a closer relationship with their relatives. Sigh. Am I a bad person for even writing this?

I really enjoyed reading your post. But (being a warlord and all) your sister isn't quite technically correct on saying its "all the same molecules." I analysed (in the lab I work - for a bit of fun) both bought cage eggs and organically grown free range eggs from my parents place. The organic eggs had a much higher healthy omega fat composition then the cage eggs. Mmmm, my sister always threatens to feed my baby chocolate and candys..... what is it with sisters??!

"This dynamic is tolerable, even strangely welcome as a pressure-release from my tightly controlled food rules." I agree with this sentiment 100%. It can be difficult and stressful to pay attention to every single piece of food my children consume around the clock, so I appreciate the help of my family for a week at a time here and there, even if they do insist on feeding my girls juice and those nasty frozen beef patties. Well, maybe NOT the beef patties. We are constrained by my husband's niche career path in where we live, but I often wonder too about whether we'd move back to the politically polarized south even if we could. Thanks for getting the wheels turning.

About Me

The lapse-prone, wanna-be eco-mom of three semi-feral children. You'll notice she has a more-than-slight tendency to over-hyphenate. Her book, A Million Tiny Things: one mother's desperate search for hope in a changing climate, will be out for Mother's Day 2012.